Throughout the '60s and most of the '70s, Sam Kinsey's fabled Teen Canteen stood at the cultural divide of San Antonio garage rock.

West Side rock 'n' roll was steeped in '50s doo-wop, Fats Domino-styled triplets and orquesta at Patio Andaluz. The Eastwood Country Club scene offered the stars of chitlin' circuit blues, R&B and soul.

And then there was the Teen Canteen, catering to mostly white, North Side suburban kids turned on by the Beach Boys, the Ventures and later the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.

Kinsey, then a 22-year-old record shop manager at Silvey Music, recognized a need for a teen hangout. He launched the first Teen Canteen at the Jefferson Methodist Church Hall in June 1960, ushering in a new era. The weekends-only concept lasted 17 years.

Canteen Fest 2010 today at John T. Floore Country Store in Helotes will reunite many of the favorite Teen Canteen garage bands, with music from 3-11 p.m. Admission is $15.

At the beginning, Kinsey spun records.

"But the garage bands came out of the woodwork," said Kinsey, 71.

Among the first bands to play were the Galaxies and the Renegades. ZZ Top made its first public appearance there.

"The scene was that of a drugless rave," Kinsey said. "We had black lights; we had strobes and overhead projectors. It was fantastic."

Admission was 25 cents in the '60s.

Imagine "Where the Action Is" and "Hullabaloo" incarnate, albeit amateurish and fresh out of the garage. The Teen Canteen outgrew each locale, including a storefront on Fredericksburg Road, a dance studio at Wonderland Mall, the Olmos Club, Earl Cobb Dance Studio (the future site of Tiffany's Billiards) before ending up at a stand-alone club across from North East Stadium near the airport by 1968.

"It was pretty white," recalled Steve Owens of the Mo-Dels. Back then, the guitarist played with Mourning Dove and glam rockers Bees Make Honey.

"There was a big divide there," Owens said. "It was a Beatles scene, sweet like ‘American Graffiti.' It's a great chapter in San Antonio music history"

"It was the Top 40 dance-rock crowd, as opposed to rhythm 'n' blues or Tejano," Kinsey said. "That's just the way it was . . . it was a ‘white person thing,' that's accurate."

"Doug Sahm was about as close as it came (to integration)," said Jim Ryan of the Outcasts, one of the great '60s psychedelic garage bands, which scored regional hits with "I'm in Pittsburgh and It's Raining" and "1523 Blair."

Ryan's band, decked out in black-and-silver coats, came out of John Marshall High School and was a favorite at the Teen Canteen, as were the Pipelines, the Chayns, the Swiss Movement, Lord August & the Visions of Lite, the Cave Dwellers, the Nomads, Pablo's Grove and Flash (led by Chris Geppert of Christopher Cross).

Singer-guitarist Charlie Eddleman, one of the original Chayns (the band formed in 1965), says the group almost took the name the Monarchs.

"Our drummer came in with a chain on his boot. That's how it started, one boot," Eddleman said. "Which we thought was strange."

"I insisted that the band play music that people wanted to hear. It had to be dance-type music," he added. That meant playing "Little Latin Lupe Lu, "Gloria" and Paul Revere & the Raiders' "Steppin' Out."

The Chayns wore chains across their Beatle boots and played through colorfully upholstered Custom brand amplifiers, known for their distinctive tuck and roll glitter.

Andy Salmon, 61, who played and recorded with Flash ("Sandbox Woman") and Christopher Cross, played a Fender Jaguar guitar in the Pipelines, a surf group that included Sol Casseb, now a state district judge, on drums.

Fame and fortune seemed right around the corner.

"Everybody was really naïve back then," said Salmon, who grew up listening to Danny Ezba & the Goldens and the Royal Jesters as well as the Beatles and the Beach Boys. "You wanted to look like those guys. It was very simple back then."